The “Best of Both Worlds”: Building a community-academic partnership for research with legal system-impacted individuals

Equitable and sustained community-academic research partnerships provide an innovative way to advance health outcomes among criminal legal system-impacted individuals. The extant literature lacks accounts that detail the process for developing such partnerships, particularly in community-based (rather than carceral) settings and with community organizations (rather than system actors). This First-Person Account – co-written by members of a research team consisting of academic researchers and community partners, including formerly incarcerated individuals – details the opportunities and challenges that emerged through a year-long pilot project intended to adapt a mental health intervention for correctional settings. The somewhat narrow focus of this project expanded dramatically over the course of the year as team members adapted to working together and realized the potential for the sustained impact of a long-term collaboration. Key elements that allowed for successful partnership development included 1) devoting time to building relationships in addition to “doing business”; 2) flexibility regarding the project aims and approach, which allowed for more equitable decision-making; and 3) striving to understand and trust each other’s respective expertise, whether based in academic training or lived experiences. Our experiences offer lessons for other researchers interested in community-engaged research that centers the perspective of criminal legal system-impacted individuals.